Best Baby Wipes in Japan

Last Updated on June 17, 2024 by Kay

Whether you’re living in Japan or traveling with a baby or toddler, you might be wondering about baby wipes. 

So similar to my review of newborn diapers in Japan and M-size pull-up or pants-type (パンツタイプ) diapers, my husband and I reviewed seven different baby wipes (おしりふき) in Japan. Specifically, we looked at factors such as scent, moisture, performance, thickness, texture, durability, usage, and cost. We also used all of these wipes on our then 13-month-old daughter over a month (and made sure to finish each package).

Hopefully, the information in this article will help parents narrow down what to use on their newborn’s delicate little tush or even older babies or toddlers as well. In fact, we changed the wipes we were religiously using for over a year after doing this review, so I wish we had done it earlier!

Flushable Baby Wipes vs Non-Flushable in Japan 

Note that this review only covers non-flushable wipes. Flushable wipes (流せる, nagaseru) are typically used when your child has harder poops that can be flushed alongside the wipe down the toilet (this can be a personal preference too if you want to ensure your home is free of odor) or when a child is toilet-training.

Wondering about how to tell the difference when purchasing? Flushable wipes will have this illustration (encircled on the bottom left side of the image below in purple):

While flushable wipes will have 流せる (flushable) written on the package (below on the green banner):

(Merries is my favorite flushable wipe!)

If you’re interested in any of these baby wipes, click on the name or image of the package to find out more or to purchase online.

Where to Buy Baby Wipes in Japan

Now, before we dive into the different types of baby wipes available, I thought I would share where you can buy them in Japan:

• Baby stores like Akachan Honpo and Babies R Us (read my guide for all the types of stores that sell baby and toddler products!)
• Drug stores (ドラッグストア) like Welcia, Matsumoto Kiyoshi, Kokokarafain (ココカラファイン)
• Grocery stores
• Daiso (100 yen store) — they don’t carry the more well-known brands that I am reviewing in this article, though
• Some convenience stores
• Online on sites such as Amazon Japan and Rakuten 

As you can see, there are plenty of places where you can buy baby wipes, which is great when you’re traveling or in a pinch! 

Baby Wipes in Japan — The Contenders

Cost per Baby Wipe

Below are the online prices per wipe from popular retailers for baby products in Japan. Keep in mind that thicker wipes tend to be more expensive than thinner wipes (see the section on “Baby Wipes in Japan – Thickness” below) — however, you will likely use less thick wipes than thin when cleaning your baby’s bottom.

Prices as of Wednesday, October 28, 2020. These prices are subject to change, for instance if there’s a sale or if you’re buying in bulk or single packages. The prices listed above are for the cheapest bulk packs of wipes.

Based on these prices, Pampers is the most expensive while Mama Bear, Pigeon, and Akachan Honpo are the cheapest. Note, however, that the Akachan Honpo wipes looked at in this review were thin ones (Akachan Honpo thick wipes are 3 yen per wipe). Therefore, Pigeon is the cheapest thick wipe out of the lot. However, despite the Akachan Honpo wipe being thin, its performance was actually quite good for the price and better than some of the thicker wipes!

Tips to Get Cheaper Baby Wipes in Japan

• Sign up for store mailing lists, download their app, friend them on LINE, and make a point card
  Stores like Babies R Us, Akachan Honpo, and Nishi Matsuya have frequent promotions and discounts for diapers, which you can find out about right away if you sign up for their mailing list, download their app, or add them on LINE. You can also sometimes get exclusive discounts or coupons if you sign up for a Babies R Us or Akachan Honpo point card (if you’re currently pregnant, you’ll also get free diaper samples as well as other goodies if you sign up so if you haven’t already, I highly recommend it). Even if you don’t have a Babies R Us store nearby, the online store (as well as Akachan Honpo) offers free shipping if you buy a certain amount so it’s worth looking into.
• Check online flyers for stores
  As mentioned above, stores have promotions on diapers and if you don’t want to sign up for their mailing list, take a look at their online flyer to see the latest deals.
• Join Amazon Family or Rakuten Mamawari
  By joining one or both of these, you can get discounted diapers.
  • Amazon Family offers a variety of discounts for diapers, wipes, and other products for all members and 15% off diaper subscriptions if you are a prime member. You also get a 300 point (300 yen) present for signing up and there is no fee involved whatsoever, even if you’re not a prime member. (Yay free money!)
  • Rakuten Mamawari （楽天ママ割) offers coupons as well as special discounts. You can also enter to try to snag a free box of samples that are given to 150 lucky winners every month.
• Buy in bulk
  Buying wipes in packs tends to be cheaper, especially if a store is having a promotion. However, it’s always a good idea to try one or two packages of a certain baby wipe first before committing to buying in bulk in case you or your baby doesn’t like it.

Baby Wipes in Japan — Size

Overall, Merries wipes are the largest in size while GOO.N wipes are the smallest. Although Merries wipes are large, I didn’t find them that difficult to handle, perhaps because they were thick and sturdy, which made them not flimsy like some of the others.

Baby Wipes in Japan —  Scent

Most of the wipes didn’t have any scent to it; however, Pampers, GOO.N, and Pigeon did give off some type of smell compared to the others. Pampers smelled a bit like chlorine, GOO.N my husband and I couldn’t exactly put our fingers on (I have, “smells a little bit weird” written in my notes) while Pigeon had a faint alcohol scent to it.

Baby Wipes in Japan —  Smoothness and Texture

This was a bit difficult to rank because, as mentioned earlier in this article, more textured wipes are better at cleaning up messes. However, smoother wipes feel better on the skin and therefore may be less irritating.

When looking at the smoothness, we ranked the wipes as follows:

1. Moony
2. Pigeon
3. Akachan Honpo
4. Mama Bear
5. Merries
6. Pampers
7. GOO.N

In terms of texture, the ranking is almost a reversal of the above:

1. Pampers
2. Merries
3. GOO.N
4. Pigeon
5. Moony
6. Akachan Honpo
7. Mama Bear

Baby Wipes in Japan —  Moisture

Below is our ranking in terms of moisture. We felt the moistness of the wipes straight out of the package and then about 30 minutes later after leaving them out.

1. Pampers
2. Merries
3. Moony
4. GOO.N
5. Akachan Honpo
6. Pigeon
7. Mama Bear

We found that Pampers was the moistest (according to my husband, “It’s almost too moist” if that’s even a thing). Akachan Honpo would have been ranked higher had it not dried out so quickly. Pigeon was a little drier while Mama Bear was both the least moist out of the package and dried out quite quickly.

Baby Wipes in Japan —  Performance

As mentioned earlier, my husband and I tested the performance of these wipes by using them to clean our daughter over the course of a month until each pack was finished. We also looked at how efficient the wipes were at cleaning up a streak of peanut butter on the kitchen table. (My husband was incredibly grossed out by the photos and is horrified that I’m posting them but it’s just peanut butter!)

In terms of how well the wipes cleaned up messes, here is our ranking:

1. Pampers, Moony
2. Merries
3. Akachan Honpo
4. Pigeon
5. GOO.N
6. Mama Bear

Pampers and Moony wipes were both impressive at cleaning up both peanut butter and baby with only one quick and effortless swipe! Merries did leave some peanut butter behind but we found it easy to use on the baby as the wipe fit our hands perfectly. My husband and I also found that since it was thicker than Moony, our hand felt less… soiled, if you will, after using it. The other wipes performed relatively equally decently except for Mama Bear (surprise, surprise…).

Baby Wipes in Japan —  Thickness

Thicker wipes tend to be more durable and better at cleaning up messes (like poop) than thinner wipes but with it comes a higher price and less wipes in a package. Thick wipes in Japan are called 厚手 (atsude) while thin wipes are called 薄手 (usude). Given that thicker wipes are more expensive, some Japanese parenting blogs recommend using them to clean your child after they poop and use thin wipes for pee.

A picture of the “poop” inside the wipes to try help give you an idea of the thickness of each wipe

As mentioned earlier, most of the wipes we tested were labeled as “thick” except for Akachan Honpo and Mama Bear, so we omitted those two from this ranking. (However, Akachan Honpo’s thin wipe is actually quite good and I dare say a bit better than GOO.N and Pigeon’s wipes.)

1. Merries
2. Pampers
3. Moony
4. GOO.N
5. Pigeon

Baby Wipes in Japan —  Durability

This was also another category that was difficult in terms of ranking as most of the wipes did stretch and tear if enough force was applied. Although we imagine most parents won’t be using lots of force when wiping their baby, we thought it was still worth testing. 

Here’s our ranking, from best to worst:

1. Pampers
2. Merries
3. Moony
4. Akachan Honpo
5. Pigeon, GOO.N
6. Mama Bear

Baby Wipes in Japan — Overall Ranking

Based on everything we looked at above, here is our overall ranking of the above baby wipes in Japan from best to worst:

1. Merries
2. Pampers
3. Moony
4. Akachan Honpo
5. Pigeon
6. GOO.N
7. Mama bear

Although Pampers performed the best overall, we couldn’t get over the smell and its cost, so those factors knocked it down to second place. Having used Moony for a year, we found it was a good brand but we preferred Merries over it in the end as Merries wipes are thick, clean our daughter well, are gentle, and are easy to use.

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, we ended up switching to using Merries baby wipes for our daughter after examining the wipes above and using them on her. I truly wish we had done it earlier! Merries wipes weren’t included in my particular Amazon Japan Baby Registry Welcome Box, which I received in 2019, but there is a package in the 2020 one — if I had gotten it, I definitely would have used Merries from the beginning.

This also isn’t to say that all of the other wipes are inferior (for instance, Moony outperformed Merries on the peanut butter test), this was just our preference after comparing the wipes. We used Moony for over a year and were quite satisfied with it, so if you want to try something cheaper, I would recommend starting with that brand for thick wipes, or Akachan Honpo for thin ones (if you think you can handle multiple wipes coming out of the package at once… and when you’re a new mom, it can be very frustrating when that happens).

For newborns, I would recommend Pampers if you’re okay with its scent because its textured surface is excellent for cleaning all different kinds of newborn poop. In fact, Pampers probably would have been in the top place if it wasn’t for its high cost and scent.

As a reminder, if you’re interested in getting free samples of baby wipes in Japan, check out this article on the free Amazon Japan Baby Registry Welcome Box or this article on additional ways to get free samples of baby products in Japan.

Also, if you want to keep your wipes moist, it’s a good idea to invest in a lid (or several) like the one pictured below, which you can find at any 100 yen store, baby store in Japan, or Amazon Japan. (Keep in mind that if your child is anything like mine, they will derive lots of joy from ripping these off the package once they’re able to.)

You can also these cuter baby wipe cases, which I absolutely love because I find the wipes come out easier (and my daughter hasn’t been able to destroy it yet).

There are also cases that warm up the wipes as well. We have one but so far haven’t had to use it; however, now that we live in a house that’s colder than our previous apartment, things might change.

I also came across this interesting device, which allows you to clean your baby using hot water and a cotton pad.

Not reviewed in this article were Kirkland baby wipes from Costco. I’ve heard good things about them but I’m too cheap to invest in a box in case I don’t like it — however, these wipes did win the 2020 ママ口コミ大賞 (Mom Review Award) for best baby wipes. A mamatomo (mom friend) also told me that she loves their wipes due to their large size and finds them especially great for wiping poop.

There’s also the environmentally-friendly option of cloth baby wipes, which you can make yourself. These wipes are especially good for babies with very sensitive skin and allergies — keep in mind, however, that if you’re planning on putting your child in daycare, the daycare may ask for flushable wipes anyway unless you have a doctor’s note stating your child can only use cloth wipes.

Lastly, when looking for wipes in Japan, here are some terms that you may want to pay attention to or look for:

• Thick wipes (厚手 ー atsude)
• Thin wipes (薄手 ー usude)
• Flushable (トイレに流せる ー toire ni nagaseru)
• Non-flushable (トイレに流せませんーtoire ni nagasemasen)
• Additive-free (無添加 ー mutenka)
• Alcohol-free (ノンアルコール・アルコール不使用*)
• Paraben-free (パラベン無配合*・パラベン不使用*)
• Phenoxyethanol-free（フェノキシエタノール不使用*）
• Mildly-acidic (弱酸性 ー jyakusansei)
• Unscented (無香料 ー mukouryou)

*Note: 不使用 or fushiou, as well as 無配合 or muhaigou, means not used, so if you want to make sure that a certain ingredient was not used in a baby wipe, look for ノン before that ingredient or 不使用/無配合 after. 無 (mu) before an ingredient, such as 無添加 listed above, will also indicate that the ingredient was not used.

Wrap-up: Baby Wipes in Japan

At the end of the day, every child has different needs, so what works for one may not work for another. But hopefully this article has helped you narrow down what kind of Japanese baby wipe to try first with your little one. 

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